Wreck Hunter Rod Pearce
& The Eccentric Old Set
by Leah Hope Sindel 2014
Recently, and with some foreboding amusement, I showed Cousteau’s classic series Le Monde du Silence to an acquaintance of mine, who was suitably horrified and indignant. The series, she exclaimed hotly, had completely changed her opinion of Cousteau. I smiled and said nothing, but later that evening my partner chuckled kindly, and remarked that if the films had so drastically altered her perceptions, she must have had precious little idea of who Cousteau was or what he did, beforehand.
For lovers of the sea, it is impossible not to feel an overwhelming nostalgia when reading about the pioneers of underwater exploration in all its forms. One imagines Cousteau and his brave, jolly men, boldly venturing into realms where none have gone before; or Hans Hass, cruising through the sunny Galapagos islands. Even later giants, such as the Taylors or Rodney Fox can never cease to exist as figures of mythical proportions in the minds of many divers interested in the history of aquatic pursuits.
It is tempting to bestow upon these giants a modern set of ideals and qualities, but the fact
remains that, a few decades ago, a very different idea of man’s relationship to the sea pervaded. Many of the common practices from this time seem atrocious to us today – sharks were barbarously slaughtered for sport, reefs where blown up with dynamite; photographers went to any and all lengths to photograph their subjects dead or alive, and historic shipwrecks were ransacked indiscriminately. But it would be foolish to resent these pioneers for being a product of their times. One can certainly maintain a modern healthy respect for our oceans, and still be overcome with admiration and fondness for these early explorers, despite the different ideals their times were immersed in.
Perhaps I am biased, as a self-confessed gushing admirer of this old set – a phrase which, I suppose, vaguely characterises anyone who has been pioneering some form of diving since the 50s and 60s or before. I have met many sunburned old men and women who fall into this category, who are still fanatically diving, photographing, and exploring. They are always exceedingly happy to find a young listener who is genuinely interested in their life pursuits, and can tell stories for hours. They are usually extraordinarily good at pulling apart engines, or cameras, or compressors, and have the sea and engine grease in their blood. They are most often of an extremely practical, down-to-earth disposition. They are almost never poetic romantics, and this indeed is probably the most glaringly false characteristic we attribute to them. A particularly fascinating branch of this old set were the wreck hunters.
Late one balmy August night, the sailing yacht on which I was holidaying reached the port of Rabaul, on the island of New Britain. Early the next morning we were startled to hear a loud “Ahoy there!” and peered through the hatches to see a scruffy looking, white-haired, shirtless man standing on the deck of a grubby motor vessel alongside. It took a few moments, after he introduced himself as Rod Pearce, for my memory to be sufficiently jogged, and it was with a rush of delight that I blurted back to him in reply “Hey you’re Rod Pearce!” Thus began a fascinating week in the company of one of the most profane, kind, brash, generous, politically incorrect, and colourful characters it has ever been my pleasure to meet.
Rod’s character is difficult to capture on paper, partly because he is so eccentric, and partly because his conversation is so strewn with cheerful obscenities and slurs that he cannot be directly quoted in print. There can be no question that Rod is a product of his times, and of the peculiar subset of culture that arises in small, long-established expatriate communities on remote tropical islands.
From the moment we arrived, Rod took us under his wing. Seeing our happy bewilderment upon arrival in our new surroundings, he sighed and fussed and organised. He rode in the bus with us, told us where to provision and who to speak to in customs. He helped us on our errands and when each task was complete, he invariably announced Right! We’re off like mum’s undies! We soon realised that this meant something to the effect of “Off we go!” and although we were unable to refrain from chuckling at his vulgar and bizarre Australian-isms, all in all he seemed exceedingly happy to have us around. He soon set about taking us diving.
Rod on the bow of Barbarian.
Having a conversation with Rod was particularly amusing for my travelling companions and I, as every time he would say something offensive or inappropriate, we would all blink, cock our heads to one side, and try not to chuckle at our mutual speechlessness. He did not seem to notice. Rod has a great deal of devoted friends - I cannot imagine it possible to believe that he has gone through life without making his fair share of enemies. Many of Rod’s social ideas could certainly be called old-fashioned. But his experience and knowledge are so vast and fascinating, and his life story so intriguing and adventurous that one cannot help thoroughly enjoying his company.
We were as thrilled to play with his sonar equipment as he was excited to have someone to share it with, and we spent some happy days scanning the harbour for new wrecks or odd shapes, and exploring them. Every time the sonar showed a plane or boat wreck which he was particularly fond of (for Rabaul harbour, like much of the Pacific, is positively strewn with war wrecks, and Rod knows much of it like the back of his hand), he would expostulate wildly about its unique features, and inform us, in rather indelicate language, of his enthusiasm for the site.
M.V. Barbarian.
Rod’s speciality is airplane wrecks of the Second World War. He was born and raised in Papua New Guinea, and has happy recollections of childhood years spent exploring the countryside and playing in the old Japanese tunnels left over from the war, in the hills behind his hometown of Rabaul. After his education was completed at a boarding school in Melbourne, he returned to New Britain, and from there promptly set off to see the world and make his fortune. He spent some time in Japan and Hong Kong as a commercial diver, retrieving and salvaging brass from old wrecks with dynamite. He drifted through the Pacific, and was arrested, he made a point of informing us grandly, in the Solomon’s Islands - although he conspicuously failed to mention why. He trekked through India, then drifted through S.E. Asia, tried to enter Cambodia and Vietnam but failed due to the raging war and political instability in the area at that time. He eventually returned to Papua New Guinea and spent many years salvaging, running guest-charters and searching for new wrecks. He has assisted the Australian, U.S. and Japanese military on numerous occasions in locating various wrecks and retrieving the remains of soldiers. His knowledge of the models and specifications of aircraft used in Second World War era is unparalleled, and he can tell at a glance the make, model and year of a pile of silt-covered wreckage underwater.
Barbarian's anchor marker/old pipe.
Rod's stories of his dive adventures from the old days are hair-raising, and he admits that some of the physical effects of so many long and deep dives do begin to take their toll. But he remains spritely and unconcerned. Repetitive, long dives on air, to 70 or 80 meters was just what you did back then. Rod would shrug as he chattered of the old days diving profiles, and would soon happily digress into colourful descriptions of daily life on the boats back then, with a great many details of the amount of rum he and his companions consumed, and the delightful, rather varied, female company they kept.
Rod lives aboard his motor yacht Barbarian. He subsists principally on rice, vegetables and whatever else happens to appear on the table when his live-in crew remind him to eat. He spends a great deal of time either contentedly taking apart and fiddling with his engine, or sitting at the table swearing at his ancient and incompetent computer. The stateroom of Barbarian is
wonderfully breezy, thanks to the 6 enormous brass portholes that he acquired somewhere along the line of his salvaging career. (I once mentioned in passing the distinct absence of any large propellers on the numerous old wrecks we had dived in our earlier travels through the Solomon Islands, and he blinked un-self-consciously and said “Oh yeah… That was me”). He has a small bookshelf with an curious variety of titles – amongst the volumes are numerous Second World War history books, anthologies of the snakes and birds of Papua New Guinea, a generic, crumpled looking 30-minute-recipe cookbook, and an ancient copy of some obscure missionary biography from 1910, which presumably found its way to his shelf for the value of the remarkable old photographs of New Britain & its inhabitants it contained, for Rod is certainly not of a religious disposition. I noticed with some amusement on the end of his shelf a slim, faded copy of the Sufi poetry of Hafiz, nestled between a picture book of fighter planes from the 1940s, and a maintenance pamphlet for a diesel marine engine.
Rod still dives Rabaul harbour and the surrounding area frequently, although he remains very busy, inundated with projects from this foundation or that committee, who are eager to acquire his services and expertise. The wrecks in Rabaul harbour were wonderful to dive, and in the evenings over cold beer or whiskey, he would regale us with tales of Papua New Guinea in the 1950s, the storms he encountered in his travels through the Pacific, and the fascinating biographies of some of the better known pilots and crew whose wrecks or remains he had discovered.
Original crew of one of Rod's most famous discoveries, the B42 Bomber "Black Jack" .
A few days into our visit to Rabaul, the local volcano erupted with tremendous force, not far from our anchorage. We made a convoy at 4 a.m. to find a safer harbour upwind, and we passed the smouldering mountain, spewing fountains of lava and reverberating shock waves through the air, just as the sun was rising over the sea. The spectacle was one of the most extraordinary things I have ever seen, and I was surprised to hear Rod speak of the incident later. He was profoundly moved, in a way I had not thought him capable, at how beautiful the eruption had been. He shook his head, momentarily speechless, when we gathered at the local bar that evening to discuss the day’s remarkable events, and as a happy silence descended upon the table, the rumble of the reposing volcano echoed across the bay.
It is very evident that the landscape above and below the water in Papua New Guinea, and particularly in Rabaul, is in Rod's blood. Rod will never leave Papua New Guinea, and he will never cease to love it, despite the occasional half-hearted tirades about some of the inconveniences of living so remotely.
We were sorry to leave, when the time finally came, and spent our last evening in Rabaul on the deck of Rod’s small sailing yacht. Sprawled out on the cool white roof of the cabin & chatting idly, we watched the rigging sway with the breeze, against a backdrop of millions of stars. The week had been marvellous. To have arrived and found a Rod Pearce more conventional and subdued, non-cursing, with a more modern and enlightened view regarding certain issues would perhaps, I reflected, have been disappointing. Rod is one of the last of a dying breed - the divers who dived before it was cool, and before there was a dive shop on every corner of South East Asia. He exudes the satisfaction of a man who has lived life to the very fullest, and his discoveries and contribution more than make up for his salty conversation and unorthodox views, just as Cousteau’s glorious vision and spirit of exploration continue to make him immortal, notwithstanding the dynamite episode at Blue Hole, and one or two other things. Rod stands as a testament to the glory - as well as the more unusual habits and ideas - of all the greats who opened up the exploration of the sea.
Click here to read more about my Rabaul Volcano adventures in the New York Times online dotearth blog
Click here to see the short video of our dawn convoy out of Rabaul harbour during the erruption.
